Some Agricultural History Salvaged
Pawson, Cecil
Agricultural History Review, Volume 7, part 1 (1959)
Abstract
A chance remark, made almost casually by my friend the late Major J. G. G. Rea (for many years Chairman of the Northumberland Agricultural Executive Committee), led to the exciting discovery of a number of letters written by Robert Bakewell to his pupil and friend George Culley in the closing years of the eighteenth century. These letters were in the possession of the late Mrs Leather-Culley at Callaly Castle, near Alnwick, among a large accumulation of correspondence destined for destruction. Mrs Leather-Culley was most co-operative and I soon found myself in a large store room on the top floor, surrounded by dusty cardboard boxes so crammed with bundles of papers as to daunt even the most enthusiastic researcher. For an hour I worked with no success, and then I picked up a fourpage foolscap handwritten letter signed “Robert Bakewell,” dated “Dishley, 28th April,” and addressed to “Mr. George Culley, Fenton, Wooler, Northumberland.” This moment of discovery remains vivid in my menlory. Stimulated by this exciting find, my search was redoubled until ultimately I had retrieved thirty-two such foolscap letters, all written in Bakewell’s own hand, together with a copy of his financial appeal, containing the list of many subscribers.
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